Poland’s ruling party proposes creating a new military service with police powers, potentially expanding to 50,000 personnel.
New Military Service with Police Powers
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has unveiled plans to create a new military formation based on the Military Gendarmerie. This new service would have powers beyond military oversight, including civilian policing capabilities.
The plan was revealed during PiS’s defense convention in Stalowa Wola last weekend, envisioning a service that monitors military personnel and facilities while receiving police authority.
Political Justification
“In times of crisis in the police, with simultaneous increase in demand for internal security and rising crime, police forces alone are not enough. That is our diagnosis. Besides, in society there is a noticeable trend that some people are willing to join the military, but not the police,” says PiS MP Bartosz Kownacki.
The current Military Gendarmerie, numbering about 3,3 thousand soldiers, would be replaced by a service that could grow to 50 thousand people, operating within the Ministry of National Defense.
Expansion Plans
These soldiers could support the police, Border Guard, and in some situations even replace the Territorial Defense Forces – handling actions such as securing the eastern border, patrolling railway tracks, or combating natural disasters.
“Currently our defense budget is quite large. We spend significant money on maintaining the military, and some of these people remain in barracks. Our solution means we still spend this money on defense, additionally we have police services,” explains MP Kownacki.
Risk of Chaos
“Proposed by PiS, the solution somewhat resembles those used in several European countries, where two services with police powers operate in parallel: civilian and military. This is the case in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Romania.”
Former Military Gendarmerie commander General Bogusław Pacek warns: “First, the powers of these services overlap, and secondly, they require a completely different approach. In practice, during accidents or disasters, it is difficult to draw the line between police powers and gendarmes.”
Peacetime Operations
“The advantage is only that the Gendarmerie, as a military formation with civilian powers, operates in military conditions, i.e. by order, not by command as is the case with the police,” says General Pacek.
He suggests expanding the existing Military Gendarmerie rather than creating a new formation, noting that “in Polish law today, there is already the possibility of using the Military Gendarmerie for actions of a civilian nature.”
Cyber Operations
MP Kownacki also sees support in the new service for special operations: “Why in peacetime not to use this quite decent backup for example for intelligence and offensive operations in the cyber domain? The military cannot do this because in peacetime it does not operate offensively.”
“This allows us to double the use of forces and resources,” he explains, pointing to the well-functioning cyber defense forces that currently focus only on defensive tasks.
